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Today in Washington – June 16, 2010

President Obama laid an egg on national TV last night. The Boston Celtics followed with their own egg laying against the Lakers. Obama is in the process of losing his base, as evidenced by the scathing analysis by three Obama cheerleaders at MSDNC (via RCP)

Keith Olbermann – “I thought it was a great speech if you lived on another planet for the past 57 days.”

Howard Fineman – “I don’t think he was specific enough… he should have been Commander-in-Chief tonight.”

As the President dithers in his response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Congress is in session and working. The House will vote on a miniature version of the bailout of Wall Street crafted for small business, TARP, Jr. The Senate has another day of Tax Extenders and will have a cloture vote. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has another hearing on the START Treaty.

Issues for Conservatives to watch in DC today:

ObamaCarter Chucks Up an Airball – The President failed in his attempt to communicate to the American public that he is in charge and knows how to address the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Roger Simon writes for Politico that the speech lacked specifics, “maybe the location was wrong. Maybe using the Oval Office — and it was the first time the president has used it for a speech — upped the ante too much. Maybe we expected too much. Like details.” Erick Erickson wrote here at RS that Obama is morphing before our eyes into ObamaCarter, “whatever the reason, Barack Obama gave the most depressing Oval Office speech since Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech. He didn’t just embrace defeat, he wore it on his suit as a substitute for an argyle sweater.” Maureen Dowd wrote for the New York Times that “once more on Tuesday night, we were back to back-against-the-wall time. The president went for his fourth-quarter, Michael Jordan, down-to-the-wire, thrill shot in the Oval Office, his first such dramatic address to a nation sick about the slick.” Drop the last line in this YouTube video of Michael Jordan’s Nike commercial and insert this ending — now you have a good video description of the air ball Jordan chucked up last night with the game on the line. With the Gulf of Mexico crisis, failure is not an option nor is it acceptable. I guess it is ok if an athlete loses a game, but now Americans know how fans of England felt when this goal in the World Cup was scored.

Tax Extenders- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is hopping to shut down debate today on the $140 billion tax extender bill that also extends unemployment benefits. After that vote fails The Hill reports that “the $140 billion tax extenders bill will probably be trimmed back in an effort to garner enough support to pass the measure, according to Democratic aides. To appease concerns about $84 billion in deficit spending, Senate Democrats could trim the so-called Medicare ‘doc fix’ back to a year, according to a Democratic aide.” Expect a few more days debating this bill in the Senate. It should be of concern to Americans that this Congress has yet to pass a budget or one appropriations bill. So much for that change thing.

TARP Jr. – The House is considering the TARP Jr. bill today. As I wrote over at Big Government, “Congress will consider legislation this week to establish TARP, Jr. for small businesses to be administered and run by none other than Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner.” The bill, “H.R. 5297, the Small Business Lending Fund Act provides ‘temporary authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to make capital investments to eligible institutions in order to increase the availability of credit for small businesses.'” No way this is temporary and this legislation sets up a $30 billion slush fund for the Department of Treasury to give away to banks in the name of small business lending. “This is an idea born from socialism and one that will harm the free market for small business, because failure will be rewarded by federal subsidies while success will be punished.” This idea is highly offensive to those who love the free market and will be yet another example of the long lasting damage done by TARP and it’s progeny.

Maybe President Obama can find a way to blame Bush for the terrible speech last night. Stay tuned.